The Mayorkas Impeachment Was a Travesty and Dems Were Right to Toss It
House Republicans undermined real action on border security and made a mockery of the impeachment process.
LAST WEEK, THE U.S. SENATE conducted the shortest impeachment trial in American history. On Tuesday, April 17, hours after receiving articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, senators voted along party lines to dismiss them. Republicans claimed that Democrats, by preemptively rejecting the charges, were trying to hide the border crisis. But the dismissal was correct, because the impeachment was preposterous. It was a nakedly political ploy, more damning in what it revealed about the GOP than in what it said about Mayorkas.
The first article of impeachment alleged that Mayorkas āwillfully and systemically refused to comply with Federal immigration laws.ā It accused him of a āschemeā to release asylum applicants, in defiance of the lawās requirement that such applicants āshall be detained.ā
The accusation was comically dishonest. Every time Mayorkas has testified before Congress, he has explained that he doesnāt have enough personnel, equipment, or accommodations to deal with all the migrants heās supposed to detain. He has pleaded with Republicans to give him what he needs. A few months ago, he helped a bipartisan group of senators craft legislation to solve the problem. But at the behest of Donald Trumpāwho wanted to preserve chaos at the border because it might get him re-elected to the presidency this fallāHouse Republican leaders refused to consider the bill, and Senate Republicans killed it. Now they have the gall to blame Mayorkas.
The second article of impeachment alleged that Mayorkas āknowingly made false statements to Congress.ā Specifically, the article said he lied by claiming that the border was āsecureā and āclosed.ā These claims by Mayorkas are eye-rollers, but theyāre no different from the self-serving overstatements politicians make all the time. President George W. Bush, for example, spoke in front of a āMission Accomplishedā banner in May 2003, eight weeks into the Iraq War. Two years later, Bush said his director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Michael Brown, was doing a āheckuva jobā on Hurricane Katrina. These were laughable exaggerations. But if they had been delivered under oath, would anyone call them impeachable lies?
The absurdity of the impeachment was on display last Tuesday, just before House managers formally brought the impeachment articles to the Senate. That morning, the House Homeland Security Committee interrogated Mayorkas about the DHS budget. The committeeās Republicans hurled bogus accusations at himāclaiming, for example, that he had instructed immigration officers ānot to take prior criminal conduct into account when taking enforcement action.ā Mayorkas patiently explained that the accusations were false. His interrogators ignored the corrections and repeated their falsehoods.
There was one moment of candor, however, and it came from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. She told Mayorkas: āThe open border is the Number One issue across America in poll after poll, and that is exactly why this committee impeached you.ā
She was right. The impeachment was never about high crimes. It was political theater.
THAT AFTERNOON, shortly after receiving the impeachment articles, Republican senators held a press conference to capitalize on them. āEveryone recognizes the single most endangered Democrat senator on the ballot this year is Jon Tester from Montana,ā Sen. Ted Cruz told the assembled reporters. Cruz asserted that āas soon as the managers arrivedā with the articles of impeachment, āTester turned and ran.ā
Sen. Roger Marshall followed Cruz to the microphone, reciting a list of swing states where Republicans aim to beat President Joe Biden and unseat Democratic senators. āI certainly just hope that the folks in states like Montana and Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada, are paying attention,ā said Marshall. If Democratic senators from those states refused to put Mayorkas on trial, said Marshall, āwe need to hold them accountable in November.ā
As the Senate moved on to debate the impeachment, other Republicans joined in the electioneering. Sen. Lindsey Graham said his message āto the American peopleā about Mayorkas was: āThereāll be an election in November. This is the only chance you have to get this right.ā Sen. Ron Johnson vowed, āWeāll continue to prosecute this case right up until November.ā
EVEN HOUSE SPEAKER Mike Johnson, whoās getting applause this week for risking his job to send aid to Ukraine, played politics with the Mayorkas impeachment. On Wednesday, after the charges were dismissed, Johnson predicted, āI think thereāll be a reckoning for all this in the election cycle in the fall.ā He boasted that Biden would have to āanswer to the American people in November. And I think itās one of the big reasons that Republicans are going to have a very, very good election cycle.ā
That evening, Cruz went on Fox News to detail his list of targeted senators: āJon Tester in Montana voted to hear no evidence. He doesnāt want to know about the failures of the Democratsā open borders. . . . Bob Casey in Pennsylvania, Sherrod Brown in Ohio, Jacky Rosen in Nevadaāevery one of these Democrats running right now, they want to hide from the issue.ā
On Thursday, Marshall went on Newsmax to extend the attack. āWe have people that are up for re-election here in November from purple states, senators from purple states like Montana and Ohio, who claim theyāre moderates, but then they stand in line to vote like a liberal,ā said Marshall. āUltimately, this is going to be decided in November,ā he predicted. āThatās the last chapter of this impeachment trial, when ultimately we go after the goose, the person thatās really doing this. And of course, thatās Joe Biden.ā
THE MAYORKAS TRIAL WASāas Graham colorfully put it during Tuesdayās Senate debateāāa frigginā joke.ā But the joke isnāt that the trial was cut short. The joke is that the trial had to be held at all. Republicans never had a case that Mayorkas had committed high crimes. All they had was a popular issue and a House majority that was willing to abuse the impeachment process for electoral advantage. They demeaned the process, but they succeeded in exposing official corruption. Unfortunately, it was their own.
